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ADDRESS 



OF 



J. J. IZVillett, 



Before the Southern Society, of New York, at 
Its Sixteenth Annual Dinner, February 22, 1902, 
in the Waldorf-Astoria Motel, responding to 
the toast, 

"GEORGE ViTflSHIl^GTOr^." 









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PRESS 
H. NORWOOD, 
ANNISTON 



Mr. Toastmaster and Gentlemen of the Southern 
Society: 

In the early settlement of Texas while immi- 
gration was pouring in from the other States the 
first question which met a stranger after he had 
crossed the Sabine River was, "What did you do at 
home that you had to come here?" And not infre- 
quently that stranger had left his home in the older 
States under circumstances alike embarrassing to 
him and his creditors, with the words G. t T. posted 
up on the door of his late abode, which was well 
understood to mean, Gone to Texas. I will not ask 
any of you tonight ''What did you do that you had 
to come to New York, or if you left G. t N. Y. on 
the door of your home in the South?" Such ques- 
tions might call for explanations, which are always 
embarrassing, and particularly so upon occasions of 
this kind. Mr. Dooley has said the reason why 
reform is so difiicull in New York City is, that it is 
full of men who have been chased here by the Sher- 
iffs from the four corners of the land. This may 
explain some of the difficulties which beset your 
Mayor and District Attorney, but I am sure this 
does not explain why the Southern Society is 
increasing in such numbers or why it is in such a 
flourishing condition as to membership and social 
graces. 

My pleasure in being with you tonight is greats 
but the greatness of my subject rather overwhelms 
me. There are times when even hardihood is virtue 
and to such virtue alone do I lay claim this eve- 
ning in venturing to address you on the subject 
assigned me. 

The story of Washington, however, will never 
grow old, or cease to be interesting. While he was 



living in retirement at Mt. Vernon after his terms as 
President had expired, Bonaparte, who was just 
entering upon his meteoric career, upon being pre- 
sented to our Minister in Paris, asked, "How is your 
distinguished countryman, General Washington?" 
Upon being informed that he was well, replied, 
"Yes, and it will always be well with him, for 
Washington's fame will be secure when my name 
shall have been forgotten." The most durable 
monument may perish but neither the forces of 
nature nor any crime of men can ever mar or muti- 
late a great example of public and private virtue. 
As Bancroft has well said, "But for Washington, 
the Country could not have achieved its Independ- 
ence, but for him it could not have formed its 
Union, and but for him it could not have set the 
Federal Government in successful motion." What 
can I say, what can any man say of him which has 
not been already rendered as familiar as household 
words, not only here, but throughout the civilized 
world? How can I add anything to what has been 
said by Guizot, John Marshall, Jared Sparks, 
Edward Everett, Washington Irving, Bancroft and 
Lodge? While Washington was a true type of the 
South, his fame does not belong to her alone, nor 
does she so claim him. His part and her part in the 
Revolution would have been of no avail but for 
what was so gloriously done in council and in arms 
by brothers in the Middle and New England Colo- 
nies. Nor does his fame belong to any nation or 
any age. Wherever human beings throughout the 
world have erected an altar, and set up a Govern- 
ment dedicated to liberty, regulated by law, these 
may claim Washington for their countryman. The 
majestic story of that life, whether told in the pages 
of history or in the verse of Lowell and Byron, never 
grows old and will never cease to claim the atten- 
tion of the sons of men. 

While I may not say anything now and inter- 
esting on the subject of Washington, perhaps I may 
in bringing you a message from your ancestral 
homes say something of that portion of the Union 
wherein the bones of your ancestors are buried and 



in which you first saw the light, which may not be 
altogether without interest to you. Glorious South- 
land! thou art still true to thy inherited valor, and 
incomparable graces. Neither the corroding marks 
of time, poverty or commercialism have taken away 
from thee aught of thy sweet gentleness, thy heroic 
and uncomplaining fortitude, or patient energy. 
Like Washington you have passed through deep 
waters and have had your Valley Forges, Brandy- 
wines, Monmouths, and Germantowns, but like him 
you have exhibited a loyalty and constancy to high 
ideals which no reverse, no hardship, no incompe- 
tency, no treachery, could shake or overcome. The 
honor and courage of your sons on hundreds of bat- 
tle fields and the virtue and gentleness of your 
women, virtues preservative of all other virtues, 
have won the admiration of the world, and shedan 
imperishable lustre on thy fair name. "The past \^ 
at least is secure." 

John Milton has well said, "War has made 
many great whom peace makes small." But we 
can say of the South as Milton said of Cromwell, 
while she showed herself great in war, peace hath 
made her greater, or more correctly speaking, that 
both war and peace alike gave opportunity for the 
display of those incomparable innate qualities 
which no m#re fortuitous circumstances could cre- 
ate or destroy; and if, as Emerson has said, "We 
are but quotations from our ancestors," does not the 
germ of that love of home and State, and that 
deathless devotion to conscience and principle, and 
to the right of self determination of what is princi- 
ple create a better citizenship, and a greater security 
for our common country against gusts of passion 
which may sometimes sweep over our land from the 
homeless? The nature of everything is best seen in 
its smallest portions, hence we must seek the nature 
of the Republic first in the family and then in the 
State, wherefore it may be said that each citizen is 
an incarnate Republic, and that Republic is safe 
whose corner stone is the love of home and kindred. 

The South has played no small part in the for- 
mation and settlement of our great country, whether 



in furnishing leaders or acquiring or settling terri- 
tory. A writer in the Century has recently demon- 
strated what was well known to many before, that 
in the settlement of this country civilization fol- 
lowed the water courses and that the great West is 
the true daughter of the South, It is well known 
that the vast domain known as the Louisiana Pur- 
chase, and all of the other country which has been 
added to the original thirteen states, making it 
extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific, were 
acquired through the influence of Southern leaders 
who were then in control at Washington. True, 
some territory has been recently acquired, which 
we of the South do not claim the credit for, and 
which time alone can tell whether or not it is a 
credit or debit. The great majority of the people of 
the United States in their knowledge of and atti- 
tude to our foreign possessions are very much in the 
position of a Confederate Soldier in the Civil War 
who was captured by the Federals. One of the 
Union Soldiers asked him, what he was fighting for. 
He replied, -'Squatter Sovereignty," "What in the 
hell is that?" asked the Union Soldier, "Damned if I 
know," replied the Confederate, "but its ours, we 
paid for it and intend to keep it." We have taken 
the Philippine Bull by the horns, but the thought 
sometimes occurs whether or not it were better if 
we had taken him by the tail instead, since we 
could hold on by the tail just as well and let go a 
great deal easier. 

But I hear someone say "What of the future 
of the South?** The primal law of existence is work. 
Like a crew capsized in water, people must either 
struggle or sink. None appreciated these truths 
more than the Southern people, and they had not 
been true descendants of the brave and gay-hearted 
cavaliers had they been appalled or discouraged at 
their great poverty and the disasters resulting from 
the Civil War. Nor were they so. A generous foe, 
recognizing the fight, had been fought to a complete 
finish and admiring the valor of his late adversary 
has assisted with capital and encouraging friend- 
ship to repair the ravages created by the War. and 



behold a transformation which reads like a fairy 
tale. While many things were done after the Civil 
War which were simply horrible yet all things con- 
sidered probably the world does not contain such 
another instance of magnanimity on the part of con- 
queror, and ability of the conquered in such a short 
interval, to repair not only the waste places but to 
compete with the other in the march of industrial 
progress. It is an object lesson which the other 
great nations may study with profit, and never end- 
ing interest. 

The Director of the last census has just issued 
a statement showing that for the past decade the 
South kept pace with the West and North in 
increase of population, and the significant feature 
of it is, that while the increase in the West and 
North was almost wholly in the cities, in the South 
the increase was overwhelmingly in the country 
and small towns. This is a healthful, hopeful sign. 
It shows that "there is life in the old land yet," and 
that the love of homes and landed estates is still an 
instinct of the descendants of the cavaliers as it was 
in Washington's time. No country can be near to 
decaying which shows that the forests are being 
felled and fertile farms being cleared to make way 
for homes and profitable agriculture. Nor has man- 
ufacturing been neglected; on the contrary the 
development now going on in the cotton and iron 
industries of the South is a revelation to the world, 
and it bids fair to surpass the industrial develop- 
ment of the West in the years succeeding our Civil 
War, Industries are springing up on all sides, and 
are paying dividends which would surprise the busi- 
ness world if they were made public. For years it 
was said the Southerner had a genius for politics 
but no aptitude for business. What an egregious 
mistake! The brtiins of the South which was once 
through self defense In politics trying to preserve its 
vested interests and the status quo are now engaged 
in business. They are building railroads, cotton 
factories, iron industries, and all other kinds of 
manufacturing establishments. The South, in com- 
plete control of its own affairs at home, is not much 
disturbed as to who is in control of affairs at Wash- 



ington, although as the wife of Louis XV once 
remarked, "An old coachman does like to hear his 
whip crack occasionally." Genius is but faculty 
intensified, or as Dr. Johnson said, great general 
powers of mind capable of being turned any way. 
Can it be doubted that the same intellectual forces 
in the South which controlled the policies and des- 
tinies of this whole nation for the sixty years pre- 
ceding the Civil War when now devoted to 
commerce and manufacturing will not be able to 
meet competitors when nature has given them the 
advantage of soil, climate, and cheaper labor and 
cheaper raw material? He must needs be very rich 
or very reckless who invests his money solely upon 
the idea they cannot, and regardless of all natural 
advantages. 

I would not have you think however, that these 
great strides in manufacturing in the South have 
been without effort, or that hers has been a "prim- 
rose path of dalliance,"— on the contrary she has 
been making a fight for the last thirty-five years 
which required more courage, fortitude and patience 
than it did to carry on the four years Civil War, 
She, without experience or adequate capital and 
beset with race troubles on every side, wherein the 
greatest kindness was noninterference, almost over- 
whelmed with an ignorant electorate, and no pro- 
vision made for its education by the power which 
forced it upon her, has met the fiercest competition 
which brains and money could supply, and like all 
great and lasting achievements in the business 
world they have been accomplished by strenuous 
and unremitting efforts and by fighting over every 
inch of the ground. Hie labor, hoc opus est. A less 
brave or less cheerful people would have given up 
in sheer despair, and the fact that they did not, has 
justified the faith and kindness of their friends, and 
has shown that they are well worthy to be called by 
that name of which we are all so proud, — that of 
Americans. 

When the South first commenced to manufac- 
ture iron, it was confidently asserted by her com- 
petitors that while Southern iron might be made 



cheaply, it was of an inferior quality and fit only for 
cheap castings, but when the Southerner commenced 
to ship and sell his iron in Pittsburg, Cincinnati and 
Philadelphia, and when the English and German 
manufacturer began to actually prefer the Southern 
over the Pennsylvania and Ohio iron, that misrepre- 
sentation died and was gathered unto its fathers. 
Then it was said the future of iron was steel, and 
steel could not be successfully made out of the 
Southern iron for the reason that the cost of elimi- 
nating the objectionable properties in the ores, and 
reducing the same to steel, would be more than the 
steel would bring in the market. The enormous 
steel industries now in successful operation in the 
South disproved this assertion, and so it died and was 
gathered unto its fathers. Then it was asserted that 
the Southern iron man paid so much higher rate for 
money than his Northern competitor that the ad- 
vantages of his location and cheapness of his raw 
materials were neutralized by his lack of capital 
and the high rate he had to pay for money. The 
successful reorganization of Southern Iron Com- 
panies, giving them an abundance of working capi- 
tal at a low rate of interest, demonstrated that 
capital, with its keen instinct for profit, had un- 
bounded confidence in the future of iron in the 
South and was desirous of developing and utilizing 
its great natural resources to the mutual advantage 
of both lender and borrower, and so this last mis- 
representation died and was gathered unto its 
fathers. 

The development in the mining of coal has kept 
steady pace with the manufacture of iron, and, if 
anything, has exceeded it, while as to the lumber 
business it is generally admitted there are no timber 
forests of any consequence now standing available 
for manufacturers this side of the Pacific slope ex- 
cept in the South. As to the oil business, I guess 
you know something about that up here. 

The development of cotton manufacturing in 
the South is even more remarkable than that of the 
iron and coal business. It is simply inconceivable, 
even to those among whom this development is tak- 
ing place, and those who do not visit the South have 



no idea of the wonderful transformation going on 
there. But a few years ago the South had but few 
cotton factories and their output was a negligible 
quantity. Today there is hardly a village but what 
has its one or more cotton factories, sometimes as 
many as ten or twelve. Today the South spins as 
many bales of cotton as New England, although it 
started in this business but yesterday. Who can 
doubt that the iron logic of events has decreed that 
in a few years practically the whole cotton crop will 
be spun into cloth in the South, thus increasing the 
value of that crop many fold, besides giving steady 
employment to hundreds of thousands of people? At 
the beginning of our cotton manufacturing it was 
said by our competitors that the South could never 
make a success of it for several reasons, one of 
which in chief was the lack of skilled or capable 
labor, but here again reasoning from false or mis- 
takenly assumed premises produced false conclu- 
sions as in the iron business, for the wife and 
daughter of the so-called "Southern Cracker," who 
have afforded our New England Magazine writers 
such amusement, have proved to be the very best 
cotton mill laborers in the world— patient, careful, 
loyal and industrious, and without desire to organize 
labor Unions and demand unjust exactions from 
their employers. It is a poetic and refined justice 
that puts it in the power of the so-called "(Jrackers" 
to be chiefly instrumental, through their capability 
as cotton mill laborers, in transferring New Eng- 
land's great cotton industries to the South. 

Then it was said that the South could never 
make the finer grades but must confine itself to the 
coarser cloths. Again we see a theory exploded 
and find the Dwight, Merrimac and other Northern 
mills duplicating their fine plants in the South, with 
new and improved machinery and manufacturing 
the finer grades of cloth; to all which we give a cor- 
dial welcome, and in several of the Southern States 
ten years exemption from all taxation. 

You ask me the cause which produced these 
results? It is the old story of the struggle for ex- 
istence and survival of the fittest. Did you ever see 



a bee hive when the hive was full of honey? How 
lazily and slowly the bees go in and out. Did you 
ever see the same hive when it had been stripped of 
its honey? How unceasingly and industriously the 
bees work until it is full again. So it was with the 
South. Until the Civil War, slavery and agriculture 
were so profitable that nearly all the South's earn- 
ings were invested in slaves and land, while our 
minerals and other great natural resources remained 
undeveloped, but when by the fortunes of war our 
hive was stripped of its honey, and slavery was no 
longer possible or even desirable, it became neces- 
sary for us to develop what we had hitherto neg- 
lected, and we are merely applying the lessons we 
have learned from the bees. 

The young men in the South today are not seek- 
ing to know what are the rights of the States as did 
their fathers or even what are their individual 
rights for they have been long since defined, but 
they are seeking to know what are their opportuni- 
ties and how they can best improve them. To them 
it is of more consequence to know how to locate and 
mine iron and coal or how to construct and profita- 
bly operate a manufacturing establishment than to 
know the history or terms of the Wilmot Proviso or 
the Missouri Compromise. To them the building of 
the Nicarauga Canal, which would connect the two 
Oceans at our doors and make a Mediterranean of 
the Gulf of Mexico in its shipping and commerce, 
with its resultant advantages to our Gulf Ports and 
inland manufactories, is of vastly more importance 
than the Hampton Roads Conference or even than 
as to who was in command at Santiago. There is 
no part of this country which is living more in the 
future than the South and there is no part for which 
the future holds out greater promise of usefulness 
and development. We are looking confidently into 
the future, and it smilingly beckons us on. 

But, gentlemen, the future, while full of promise, 
also holds great questions to be solved. The new 
century we have just entered upon contains within 
itself the problems of the future. What has been 
settled in the past century is scarcely now of more 



than academic interest, and it is burning.—living 
issues which engage the greatest thoughts of man- 
kind. As Americans we are no longer deeply inter- 
ested in the rights of man in his individual capacity 
as a vital question. They have been so firmly estab- 
lished by our Federal and State Constitutions and 
by the hundreds of decisions of our highest Courts 
that no one now doubts or disputes them, nor have 
we the slightest idea of relinquishing anyone of 
theiri. It is natural however, that when a question 
is settled finally and conclusively it ceases to be 
absorbing. One of the great questions of living 
interest just now is the rights of property, and its 
right to contract — and over against this is the 
equally if not more important question of the rights 
of society or man in his collective capacity. To the 
solution of this great question, the South with its 
homogeneous and conservative yet progressive peo- 
ple can, must and will contribute its full share. 
Other questions will crowd upon us. How shall we 
without sacrificing our own race, discharge the full 
measure of our duty towards that unfortunate race 
who are in our midst without fault on their part, to 
whom this country has so long been a home, and 
who were falsely taught for so many years that 
they were wards of the Government? How shall 
the individual be preserved in the mass and be 
made to feel his responsibility for government and 
the duty of discharging public obligations? How 
shall corruption in private and public life be eradi- 
cated? These arid similar questions must be ans- 
wered and they will be by the countrymen of 
Washington, who whether in success or defeat have 
ever held to high ideals. And so as a nation we 
enter the new century in that spirit of optimism 
which is essential to progress and the natural result 
of trials and dangers successfully encountered and 
with self confidence arising from experience. Proud 
of the past and the achievements of our ancestors, 
yet looking not into the past but into the more glo- 
rious future, chanting not the Miserere, but the Te 
Deum, we proceed to take our place among the 
peoples of the earth and to fulfill a destiny vouch- 
safed to us by rrierit and by inheritance. 



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*■ 



ADDRESS 

. . OP 



J. J. Willett, 



Before the Southern Society, of New York, at 
it8 Sixteenth Annual Dinner, February 22, 1902, 
in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, responding to 
the toast, 

"GEORGE VS/^flSHINGTON." 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



III 

014 444 893 5 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





014 444 893 5 # 



